Ambrose of Milan : The words "be blameless" are addressed to Abraham, to whom had been given the spirit of wisdom, holy, marvelously agile, unpolluted. The soul of the just man, therefore, must be in training night and day, ever on the lookout, never indulging in sleep but on perpetual watch, intent on God, so as to understand the things that are and to comprehend the causes of each. But wisdom is also the interpreter of future things: "She knows the things of old and infers the things to come. She understands turns of speech and the solutions of riddles. She has foreknowledge of signs and wonders and of the outcome of seasons and times." One who has obtained her, therefore, cannot but be good and perfect, because he possesses every virtue and is the very image of goodness. Even the sophists of this world drew from this text a definition of such a wise man: The wise man is (by definition) a good man and an accomplished communicator. — On Abraham Bede : After he had turned ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, "I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be perfect. I will establish my covenant between me and you, and I will greatly multiply you exceedingly." Hence, the name of Abraham is amplified at the age of one hundred years, the covenant of circumcision is given, and the promise of the birth of Isaac is made, so that in a great mystery, a one-hundred-year-old receives the son of promise already circumcised. He walks before the Lord to be able to be perfect, who every moment remembers himself to be standing in the sight of the Divinity and as if placed in his service; as Elias, who said, "The Lord lives, in whose sight I stand" (1 Kings 17:1); he always indicated that he kept himself prepared for divine service, having the presence of his Creator in mind; and because the first step of perfection is humility, it is rightly added: — Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron) John Chrysostom : After the tenth year he took Ishmael, his child by the maidservant, and considered that the promises had been fulfilled for him in the child. The patriarch was, you remember, the text tells us, eighty-six years old when Ishmael was born. The loving God, however, exercised the virtue of the just man for a still further period of thirteen years. When God saw that he had been purified like gold in a furnace for a long period of time and had rendered the just man's virtue more conspicuous and resplendent, Scripture says, "When Abram was ninety-nine years old, God appeared to him again." Why did God delay so long? Not simply that we should get to know the just man's endurance and his great virtue, but for us to see as well the extraordinary degree of his power. You see, when nature lost its potency and was now useless for childbearing, his body being wasted and chilled with old age, God put into effect the promise to demonstrate his peculiar power. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 39.5 Origen of Alexandria : Since in many places of the divine Scriptures we read that God speaks to human beings, and because of this the Jews indeed, but also some of our own people, have thought that God is to be understood as though a man—that is, as marked out with human limbs and bodily form—while the philosophers, on the other hand, look down upon these things as fabulous and shaped after the likeness of poetic fictions; it seems to me that I must first speak a few words about these matters, and then come to the things that have been read out. First, then, let my discourse be addressed to those who, set outside, arrogantly clamor around us, saying that it does not befit that lofty and invisible and incorporeal God to make use of human affections. For if you grant Him, they say, the practice of speaking, without doubt you will also grant Him a mouth and a tongue and the other members by which the function of speaking is fulfilled. And if this be so, then there has been a departure from the invisible and incorporeal God; and stringing together many things similar to these, they weary our people. To these things, then, if we are helped by your prayers, we shall briefly reply, in the measure the Lord shall grant. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 3.1 Origen of Alexandria : Just as we profess that God is incorporeal and almighty and invisible, so also we confess by a sure and unshakable doctrine that He cares for mortal things and that nothing is carried out apart from His providence, neither in heaven nor on earth. Remember that we said nothing is carried out without His providence, not: without His will. For many things are carried out without His will, nothing without His providence. For providence is that by which He looks after and manages and provides for the things that are done, whereas will is that by which He wills something or does not will it. But of these things elsewhere; for that treatment is longer and more diffuse. According, then, to this, that we profess God to be the provider and manager of all things, it follows that He should indicate what He wills or what is expedient for human beings. For if He does not indicate it, He will neither be the provider of man nor be believed to care for mortal things. When therefore God indicates to human beings what He wills them to do, by what affection above all is He to be said to indicate it? Is it not by that which is in the use and knowledge of human beings? For if, for the sake of argument, we should say that God is silent—which is believed to befit His nature—how will anything be thought to have been indicated by Him through silence? But now He is said to have spoken for this reason, that human beings, knowing that by this ministry the will of one is made known to another, may recognize that those things which are conveyed to them through the prophets are indications of the will of God. In which things assuredly the will of God is not understood to be contained unless He is said to have spoken them, because it is neither perceived nor understood that among human beings the will can ever be indicated through silence. But again these things we say, not according to the error of the Jews, or even of some of our own who err along with them, so far as to suppose—because human frailty cannot hear otherwise about God than as the things themselves and their names are known to it, and therefore we should suppose that God acts with these members like our own and with a human form. This is foreign to the faith of the Church. But this very thing, that He either breathes into the heart of each of the saints or causes the sound of a voice to reach his ears, is what is meant when God is said to have spoken to a man. So also, when He indicates that the things which each one either speaks or does are known to Him, He is said to have heard; and when He indicates that something unjust is being done by us, He is said to be angry; when He convicts us of being ungrateful for His benefits, He is said to repent, indicating these things indeed by those affections which are in use among human beings, yet not administering them by those members which belong to a corporeal nature. For that substance is simple and composed neither of any members nor of joints and affections, but whatever is carried out by the divine powers, this—that human beings may be able to understand it—is either set forth under the name of human members or is expressed by common and known affections. And in this way God is said either to be angry or to hear or to speak. For if the human voice is defined as struck air, that is, air beaten back by the tongue, God's voice too can be called air struck either by divine force or by divine will. And hence it is that, if at any time a voice is divinely given, it glides not to the ears of all, but to those whose hearing it concerns, so that you may recognize the sound to be rendered not by the beating of a tongue—otherwise the hearing would be common to all—but governed by the direction of the heavenly command. Although it is reported that often to the prophets and patriarchs and the rest of the saints the word of God came even without the sound of a voice, as we are abundantly taught from all the sacred volumes. In which, to speak briefly, the mind, illumined through the Spirit of God, is formed into words. And therefore whether in this way or in that, which we have spoken of above, God is said to have spoken when He indicates His will. According, then, to this understanding, let us now discuss some of the things which have been read. — HOMILIES ON Genesis 3.2